Database delle pubblicazioni
Early School Leavers Survey
Queensland Government
Queensland Government
State of Queensland (Department of Education, Training and Employment) 2005-2012
Survey
English
The Department of Education, Training and Employment of the Queensland Government (Australia) was commissioned by the State authorities to conduct a state-wide survey, called “Next Step”, on the problem of early school leaving. This practice started in 2007 and is meant to continue for five years. Students’ are asked about their decision of dropping out from school before the end of the cycle of studies; they can choose either an online questionnaire or a computer-assisted telephone interview to answer the survey. The questions that are most frequently asked in the survey are about whether the dropped out students work or not and what kind of work do they do, what are they going to do after having left school and to give some information about their parents’ lives. Recently, the Queensland Government decided to take into account not only government schools, but also the non-government ones (“2012 Early School Leavers Survey” includes this new branch). The purpose of this instrument is to evaluate the degree to which early leaving is occurring in Queensland schools, so that the Government can work on the problem and assist students that show this uneasiness. The Department of Education adopted as its motto the concept of “learning or earning”: its aim is to successfully assist students in the transition towards education or employment. The results of each survey are to be found in the Government’s website, the 2012 survey will be available in 2013.
This survey on early school leavers represents a useful tool for the Queensland Government: it allows the Department of Education to analyze year by year the development of the scholastic dropout problem. The Government gives particular attention and really cares about the lives’ condition of students in its State. Through the mean of the survey new policies can be implemented in order to improve the current situation in Queensland. The annual surveys are published in the Government’s website, so that all the people can look at them and make their own position on this issue. Each report specifies the various steps that made up the survey in order to help the reader following a coherent point of view in analyzing the data. The participation of students to these surveys has been very high and this testifies the success of this method. It represents an example of concrete action in favor of students that need to be supported in a critical phase of their lives. The continuous monitoring of the problem offers a long-term perspective of analysis, so that people can evaluate the goodness and the effectiveness of the Government’s policies regarding the early school leaving theme. The possibility to interact directly with the Department of Education, Training and Employment, asking for information on this matter or expressing their own opinion, gives way to the citizens to be active participants in society they live in.
Sara Ciabattini
Pixel Association
Project Assistant
Login Area
15 November 2012
Stay@School at the Future of Education Conference
The Stay@School projet will be presented at the third edition of the “Future of Education” international conference, held in Florence, Italy, on 13 - 14 June 2013. Over 250 participants from all over the world will attend the conference. The conference participants belong to the sectors of higher education, school education, vocational education and training as well as adult education, therefore representing all of the target groups of the Stay@School project.
School Inclusion - Copyright 2008 - This project has been funded with support from the European Commission